Office Hours: MW 12-1 and by
appointment on Friday
Office: 19 Peabody Hall Office
Telephone: (706) 542-5356 (messages)
Writing Intensive GTA: Dan
Marcec, MA Candidate, Religion
Department
Religion
and Literature is a discipline that was developed at the University of Chicago
in the 1940Õs and 1950Õs. The desire of the scholars involved was (and of those
of us in the discipline now is) to examine the problematic of religion in the
modern world. We explore basic
human questions, such as those of identity, community, ethical action, and
spirituality and how those have been expressed in literature. The language of such an exploration, in
Western literature, sometimes is specifically Christian; sometimes is
interpreting Christian language in new way; and, sometimes is in deep
disagreement with Western tradition and seeks a new way. Often, the religious meanings are
developing and hybrid, using a number of traditions in syncretic, Òmixed,Ó
ways.
This
semester, we are focusing on American writers, in a variety of genres. We will
read short story (Poe), novel (Morrison), poetry (Oliver), memoir/autobiography
(Ehrlich), and novella/autobiography (Maclean). The questions we will look at
include:
á
What kind of American
self emerges in the modern and postmodern world?
W.
E. B. Dubois argued, in The Souls of Black Folks, that one problem of the
oppressed person is that he/she develops a double consciousness. Many writers
and theorists are seeing this double-consciousness, not just in the oppressed
but also in the oppressor. What does it mean to live with a subjectivity—a
self—that is divided, always two? How can this be reconciled without
becoming a monster?
To examine this, we will look at two writers: Edgar
Allan Poe and Toni Morrison. Both write Òhorror fictionÓ and Òdetective fiction,Ó
I would argue. PoeÕs is most overt, and he shows us the consciousness, the self
in peril, even when it is most reasonable. Morrison introduces us to subtler
monsters: ordinary people with secrets. Her novels almost always take place in ÒhauntedÓ
houses, on haunted landscapes that shape and resist the characters.
á
What are the ways that
American writers have thought about healing the divided self and about relating
it to the ÒotherÓ—nature, other people, community, and finally, the holy
or the sacred or the divine, in whatever way one apprehends the divine. One
important sub-theme of this course is the role of nature in American identity
and in healing.
Given
the need for meaning, what are the images, the metaphors, of potential
wholeness, of the religious, available for us to think about, with, and against
in the postmodern world?
1.
Journal 30%
Write weekly—at least one page. Sometimes I will
assign questions. Other times, you should write about what is concerning you,
what you want to discuss in class, what insights you have had.
2.
Midterm 20%
The midterm will ask you to identify important themes and
characters in the works we have studied to that point. It will cover Poe and
Morrison.
3.
Paper 30%
5-7 pages on the topic of your choice. Your WIP GTA will
work with you on this.
4.
Final 20%
A take-home of two out of three essays of 3-5 pages each.
Attendance
is mandatory! If you miss over three: Suffer into truth!
Grading
scale:
98-100=A+
93-97.99 A
89-92.999=A-
86-88.999=B+
83-87.999=B
79-80.999=B-
76-78.999=C+
70-75.9999=C
69 and lower: you
need to talk to me! Quickly!
Texts
(all available in the UGA bookstore): Please use the editions I ordered, so we
can be Òon the same page.Ó
Ehrlich, MiriamÕs Kitchen: A
Memoir
MacLean, A River Runs Through
It and Other Stories
Morrison, Tar Baby
Oliver, New and Selected
Poems, Volume Two
Poe, Portable Edgar Allan
Poe, Ed. Gerald Kennedy
Any handouts that are on-line
or given out in class.
á
You should come to class
on time. You should bring whatever we are working on to class. Otherwise, why are you here?
á
All work will be done on
time. The information in the
course builds on each component, so late work is not acceptable and will not be
accommodated.
á
QUIET: No newspapers, crunchy and otherwise noisy food,
talking to others, etc. You know
how to behave. If you are
bothering me, you are bothering your classmates. In other words, you should be focused on this class when you
are here. If you are not, you will
be asked to leave.
á
At times, we will be
talking about things that are different and that may seem odd or weird to you,
in tension with your beliefs and ideas.
Discomfort is to be handled with reflection, not with insult,
indifference, and/or insolence. In
plain language, inappropriate language—verbal and body—will not be
tolerated.
á
Respect is the order of
the day—for your classmates, for the professor, and for the subject
matter.
á
Laptop computers are
fine—until I catch someone checking e-mail, looking through the internet,
or something like that. Then, all
computers will be banned.
All academic work must meet
the standards contained in ÒA Culture of Honesty.Ó Each student is responsible
to inform himself or herself about those standards before performing any
academic work.
I will not automatically drop
you from the course. If you want to withdraw, please initiate the process
yourself. I will assign a ÒWÓ
until after the official midpoint withdrawal of October 14.
Brief Outline of the
Course: Details will be announced in
class: The course syllabus is a general plan for the course; deviations
announced to the class by the instructor may be necessary.
LetÕs begin with a very
American definition of religion:
Religion
shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual [human
beings] in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in
relation to whatever they may consider the divine.
--William James, The Varieties of Religious
Experience
I.
Enlightenment
Reason and Enlightenment Fears: The Crisis of Faith; Or, how to make a monster.
Identity
is fragile. We both have it given to us, by the culture and family into which
we are born and in which we participate, and we make it, by our choices and
actions. When either our context betrays us or we betray ourselves, we can find
ourselves dislocated. Thoreau argued that most people live Òlives of quiet
desperation.Ó Poe takes this statement to its extreme. His characters are
either madmen or geniuses, but both types can live only in the dark. Poe lets
us examine Enlightenment reason in its binary manifestations: the supremacy of
reason in a character like August Dupin, and the fracture of reason in his
madmen.
January 9:
The
Enlightenment made a world. It shaped what began in the Reformation and the Age
of Exploration, both opening human beings to New Worlds—geographically,
psychologically, and spiritually. This Ònew arche,Ó as historian of religions, Charles H. Long calls it—this
new origin—fashioned a new human being. DescartesÕ ÒI think; therefore, I
amÓ—with most of us forgetting his reconstruction of religion—placed
reason at the forefront of what it meant tobe. W. E. B. DuBois realized that those on whom reason was used,
on whom history was made, could not be so triumphant. They, whether Òat homeÓ
(the colonized) or in diaspora (the enslaved, the deported and resettled,
and/or the lost) suffered a fracture of self.
What
about those we do not deem to have reason—women, slaves and conquered
people, and nature—and therefore, over whom those with reason have ÒdominionÓ?
The Enlightenment binary constructions—self/other, etc.—made room
for terror, exploitation, and abuse. All this happened in located places, Òcontact
zonesÓ where those who, in the past, might never have met, found themselves
engaged in relationship, often intimate relationship, in altered landscapes and
haunted houses.
America
is a particular and peculiar construction in this regard. From the ÒdiscoveryÓ
of America, to the Pilgrims, to the Òdark and bloody groundÓ of the South to
the ÒManifest DestinyÓ that shaped the West, America has been a space formed
into place by dreams and by force.
And yetÉFormed
by Enlightenment principles, it, nevertheless, has made room for—slowly,
late, sometimes grudgingly, and, sometimes, we must confess, marginally—the
Òother.Ó
America, Charles Long writes, is a hermeneutic.
Morrison explores these
issues, the haunting and its consequences for individuals and communities, in
probably her most difficult novel, Tar Baby. For Morrison, the outcomes
of the Enlightenment and colonial experiments are exile, homelessness, and an
inability to love—self or other.
In
this novel, Morrison gives no answers—or few. Like Poe, she diagnoses and
presents.
January 30-February 22
Culture is the repertoire of
viable choices that has come to us through generations of human beings who have
grappled with the dilemmas of living.
--Giles
Gunn
Show me how to do what you
do. Show me how to be like you.
--Alice
Walker, quoting Stevie Wonder
The more things you can do,
the more choices you have, and the more freedom you possess.
--Carolyn
Medine, quoting and expanding Robert Parker
March 3-7: Mary Oliver, Poems
(to be announced)
March 17: Oliver, last things
March 19-April 10: Ehrlich,
MiriamÕs Kitchen
April 14-25: MacLean, A River
Runs Through It
April 28: Last things: Where
are we? Where do we go from here?